BREAKFALL - GrimmIchi yaoi
by ichibanseiken
Summary: Not even Ichigo, Aikido club founder, is immune from sexual assault. Grimmjow's ready to wage war, using his ex-Navy and karate skills. Yet only Ichigo can put himself out and play bait to catch the perp. Will Ichigo's stubborn independence and Grimm's fierce protective streak tear their budding romance apart? Martial arts, swearing, violence, M/M romance, yaoi, PTSD, recovery.
1. Chapter 1

**_Some of you have seen this story years ago. Welcome to the new and improved version! I am very excited to make an announcement:_**

_"BREAKFALL" is coming out as a book with original characters!_

**_That's right - my icon shows most of the cover. Our release date is June 27th, 2014. The book is now available for pre-order with Dreamspinner Press. If interested, please check my profile page!_**

_DISCLAIMER: Bleach characters belong to Tite Kubo. Original characters and plot belong to me._

**_And now, enjoy..._**

BREAKFALL – Chapter 1

SMELLS OF food and mildew from the carpet made the air thick and viscous as he fought his way down the corridor, step by step, all the way up to her door. He raised his hand and formed a fist so tight he felt his nails bite into the flesh of his palms. An eternity passed while he summoned courage.

She would be there, but he wouldn't.

He was dead, and Grimmjow Jeagerjacques still struggled to reconcile himself with that painful reality. He swallowed his bile and blinked against the salt of tears that had not come yet but threatened to burst forth ever since he found out. His fist was still, poised above the door in a moment of weak indecision. The door was beige and institutional, and its name placard said "Nell and Starrk Coyote."

There was an explosive sound of knuckles against wood and the pain of knocking too hard, but his eyes were still on Starrk's name.

The door flew open.

"Hey, sailor boy!" Her eyes were as green as Grimmjow remembered from years ago.

"Nell." He entered the apartment, kicked off his loafers, and gathered his oldest friend and mentor in a generous hug. "So how are you holding up? How's the baby?"

"You can see Stella when she wakes up." Nell's voice was soft, just like her eyes. Unlike her fists, though - Nell had once been the most feared female competitor on the full-contact circuit.

She led him to a small sitting room furnished with practical IKEA furniture. A customary pot of tea waswaiting next to the indispensable bowl of fruit. As they sat in companionable silence, it occurred to him that some things hadn't changed. Others had. She poured the tea. Fragrant steam formed above the hot teacups and dissipated. She drew a deep breath before she broke the silence. "Well... it's been... tough since Starrk died."

Grimmjow watched the way her eyes emptied of emotion as she focused on just the facts. He had heard the road had been wet that night. Starrk's bike fell prey to an oil slick.

"It all happened so fast. He didn't even know we were expecting at the time."

And now she was a single mother of a six-month-old little girl. Only the slightest quaver in her voice belied her stoic expression.

"We built the dojo together, he and I. You know the history—you saw most of it, years ago." Her smile warmed Grimmjow as time shifted to the past. He well remembered the days when Nell-sensei and James-sensei, _Starrk _to his friends, were unmarried undergraduates at MIT. Grimmjow was a troubled high-schooler, hanging out, learning what karate he could from them before he was old enough to enlist.

"I'd keep teaching, but I can't," she said. "I'm almost done with my thesis and applying for post-doc positions all over the country. With Stella around, there just isn't enough time."

"Have you quit entirely?"

"No. No... I'll be back. I make class once or twice a month—when I can find a babysitter. I teach seminars to keep Nnoitra on the straight and narrow. It's been mostly his school since I got too pregnant to spar. Look, he's a pretty good guy. He's smarter than he looks—try to win him over, all right? Even though this is a good time to make a transition in leadership, it will be rough on him not to be in charge. He used to outrank you, but now you outrank him and you had the privilege to study straight from the source. Try not to rub it in too much."

Grimmjow ran his hand through his hair. He had been fortunate to be stationed in Okinawa. He was doubly grateful for having found a small dojo in his original karate style. Back then he would have gladly traded his bloody Viking heritage and the command of his mother tongue, Danish, for an equally bloody warrior Okinawan history and a solid command of Japanese. He was the tallest and clumsiest student, yet the Uehara family had accepted him, first as a target for their children and then as something much more. He had seen and been trained in weapons most karate students in the States didn't even know existed.

Now he was an MIT undergraduate, courtesy of Uncle Sam and the GI Bill, as well as a US citizen. The downside was that he was entering his sophomore year six years older than his fellow students.

Nell needed him to take over their karate club. His chest tightened at the thought of being there without her—and without Starrk. His teacher and mentor and friend. He could never replace him. He would never equal him, nor would he ever repay the debt he owed. All he could do was try to pay it forward by teaching what he had been taught by Starrk's rough, generous hands.

"THANK YOU very much." "Thank you, Sensei!"

A row of thirty-one students bowed to Ichigo Kurosaki as he closed the first aikido class of the year. He looked up and down the row of students sitting on their knees in _seiza_-style. He'd done well. Only a junior in college, and his following was already strong, with his students showing good progress.

"We have some announcements. There will be a change of class schedule due to a conflict with the karate club." He cut the moaning and groaning off with a stern look. "Next weekend, be here for the seminar with Kuchiki-sensei. He'll be on the East Coast for two weeks again, and he'll spend four whole days with us, so I expect one hundred percent attendance and good form."

He scanned the row of attentive faces. "Furthermore, some of us will be attending a karate tournament Saturday at Newton High during their lunch break to give a brief demo. Make it if you can. See you on Thursday!"

Ichigo stretched up to collect a Japanese scroll that hung in its temporary place on the wall. He rolled it and put it in his gear bag while the rest of the class rolled up the orange wrestling mats and set them by the wall.

Butterflies danced in his stomach. Next weekend would be big. Aikido dojos from New Hampshire to Rhode Island were invited—but only the affiliated ones. There was only one true way under Kuchiki- sensei. Renji Abarai, his oldest and best friend, would drive up from Providence with his students. Rukia Kuchiki would make her way down with her group from University of New Hampshire, eager to see her brother teach regardless of her school commitments.

He exhaled a nervous breath as he knelt. With experienced hands, he coaxed his billowy black samurai pants, his _hakama_, into a rectangle of tidy pleats.

_Think one point. Keep weight underside. Extend ki. Keep up with coursework. _

If he obeyed those precepts with his whole heart, everything would

work out for the best. Just like Kuchiki-sensei always said.

_**Thank you for your support over the years. Stay tuned for another chapter in few more days!**_


	2. Chapter 2

Breakfall – Chapter 2

LOUD _KIAI _shouts punctuated the noise of the Saturday crowd and reverberated off the walls of the large high school gymnasium. Grimmjow let the noise wash over him as he surveyed the scene of yet another regional karate tournament.

There were too many age groups and too many categories to fit into the day—and as a fourth-degree black belt, he was obliged to volunteer as a judge and help with cleanup after closing. Early to rise and late to bed had become a motto he didn't mind. It was certainly no worse than the Navy. At least now, he had some control over his schedule and activities, and the responsibility for the lives and the wellbeing of those around him no longer rested on his shoulders.

A _kata _competition with weapons was going on to his left. Weapons whistled through the air, pressed uniforms rustled, and the competitors punctuated their killing blows with a strong kiai. The most common sequence of techniques the beginners performed showed only minor stylistic differences from one school to the next, which made their performances easy to compare.

He wondered whether his students' more advanced and less familiar "_Harachi no bo_" would be to their advantage or to their detriment. Not many ventured deep into old weapon forms. Coyote-sensei—_Starrk_—used to teach both. Grimmjow felt a keen sense of loss at not being able to teach his old sensei "_Sakugawa no bo_," an ancient, obscure form he learned in had likely never seen it before. He would have appreciated it, savored it; he would have explored the destructive potential of its every nuance with efficient yet effortless grace. He would have grasped the _bo _staff's probable original use—as a way to make use _of nantubo_, an Okinawan fishing spear—and he and Grimmjow would have worked the moves until it all clicked...

_Fuck. He's dead. Starrk's gone._

"Everybody line up!" The segment was over, and the competitors were called to bow to the judges en masse_. _Grimmjow took a drink from his water bottle and honed in on the announcements.

"...and you are welcome to stay for an Aikido demonstration by the MIT Aikido Club."

A volunteer brought lunch. Grimmjow asked his students to help set it up, except old memories made him forget where he was and caused him to bark commands as though onboard ship again.

He startled when he saw their alarmed expressions. He softened his tone and started handing them drinks out of the cooler. It occurred to him that he was less maternal than Nell and less mischievous than Nnoitra. Conscious of his body language, he forced himself to relax. He smiled and silently hoped he wouldn't drive most of them away.

They sat and ate, keeping an eye on the sparring ring. A slight man stood, solid and immovable, in the center of the padded ring floor as though he anchored the very fabric of space around him. His waffle-weave cotton _gi _was the heavy kind, and its natural yellow color had been bleached into pristine white through many years of use. When he moved, his black hakama flowed around his ankles in graceful sweeps.

"He don't look like much," Nnoitra snickered into Grimmjow's ear.

"Just wait," he replied, yielding a grin.

Kuchiki-sensei didn't look particularly large or powerful. He didn't need to be. His opponents attacked with a fury of grabs, punches, and kicks. He treated them with equality—they all fell. Yet they did not fall hard. They rolled with the ease of long practice, only to stand up and attack again. Two, three, four at a time—it didn't matter.

"It's gotta be rehearsed," Nnoitra rasped just as the impressive _aikidoka _faced his audience. His previous lecture demonstrated the principles of using the force of the opponent's attack against him, and he stressed the

importance of the mind and body acting as one in an instinctive, natural manner.

_Extend ki_, _relax completely_, and _keep one point _were phrases his audience heard, absorbed, but failed to quite comprehend.

"I will ask for volunteers now." The calm words of Kuchiki-sensei carried in a clear and mesmerizing voice. "Everybody please come and attack."

And they did. Eager black belts from surrounding karate schools lined up to either debunk the graceful man or see what they could learn from him. Their students followed and were thrown with a degree of force commensurate with their belt color and their attitude. Most of them didn't know how to fall right.

"You going, Grimm?" Nnoitra asked. His voice hummed with excitement.

"Don't call me that." Grimmjow's response was reflexive. His Danish name could be twisted to produce unfortunate nicknames in English, and he had bloodied many a snotty nose over the issue in his youth. He made the rule against nicknames to protect his dignity many years ago, and unfortunately, that meant his friends didn't get to call him "Grimm," either. He noticed the hurt expression on Nnoitra's face and softened.

"Sorry. Didn't mean it that way. You go. I've seen it before."

Before Nnoitra got his turn with the visiting instructor, Kuchiki-sensei stopped the action and introduced a slightly taller and much younger man.

"This is Ichigo Kurosaki, who leads the MIT Aikido Club. If you're interested in trying what you see us do up here, make sure to look up their schedule on the website."

Grimmjow watched Ichigo attack and be thrown a few times before Ichigo turned to the rest of the waiting karate men and women and bowed to them. It was Ichigo's turn to do some throwing.

LATER THAT night, the numerous aikido tribes invaded a large restaurant. To Ichigo, it felt like being back home again: Kuchiki-sensei and his sister, Rukia; Ichigo's friend Renji; and numerous visitors from other schools. Ichigo felt warmth bloom in his chest when he sat down between his sensei and Rukia.

If he did well enough, he'd attract more students.

If he attracted enough students, his dojo would grow. If his dojo grew, Kuchiki-sensei would be pleased. If Kuchiki-sensei was pleased, he might let Ichigo date his sister.

He glanced at Rukia. Their eyes met, and she smiled and looked

away. He didn't know if that was good or bad. He noticed her boyish, wispy hair tickle the pale skin of her neck, and he wondered what it would be like to lean in and kiss the place where her graceful neck met the set of her shoulders. Her hair was as black as her brother's and almost as beautiful as it curled around the delicate shell of her auricle.

He loved the rare moments when her mouth turned up just a little bit, just like her brother's, and she would meet his eyes with a thoughtful, sweet gaze, and he'd almost lose himself in the warmth of their unconditional friendship.

He thought back to when they worked together this afternoon. He had grabbed the lapel of her gi in an attack. She put her small, delicate fingers over his much larger hand. The sight made him feel strangely protective.

Then she shifted her weight, twisted her hips, and threw him. Ichigo was airborne, soaring for just a brief, adrenaline-infused second while her hands guided his body with firm confidence. He landed on his belly, breaking his fall with a free hand. He felt her apply a joint lock. He tapped on the mat when the stretch turned to pain. She gently lowered his curled arm to the small of his back.

Separate and standing once again, it was her turn to attack him, and he threw her with the same rough tenderness. He loved falling for Rukia almost as much as he loved falling for her older brother.

Kuchiki-sensei's voice disrupted Ichigo's daydreaming. "Your students are looking good, Ichigo." His baritone was mellifluous and hypnotic and, once again, Ichigo felt caught under the other man's spell. Ichigo focused on him, and it was as though the rest of the whole world fell away from them.

"Tomorrow is our last day. We will do the testing and the promotions then."

"Thank you, Sensei. It is an honor for you to stay this long," Ichigo said.

He saw his teacher pause. "It is no duress to visit a student who truly believes in the universal truth of what we teach. There is no situation in life where Aikido would fail to be of use."

Ichigo lowered his eyes as he pondered these words, searching for every ounce of meaning in that message. He felt a surge of warmth toward his teacher, a kind of warmth he never felt for the man's sister. He suppressed it with practiced ease. Just hero-worship. It would pass—it always did.


End file.
